Billionaires battling for former NASA launch pad

In a battle of billionaires, space ventures owned by Internet pioneers Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are relying on prominent former lawmakers as they jockey for control over a historic launch pad at Kennedy Space Center.

The Florida launch pad was mothballed after the U.S. retired its shuttle fleet in 2011 and turned to countries such as Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. It's now coveted by Musk's Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX, and Bezos's Blue Origin LLC, which are trying to fill the void.

SpaceX, already delivering cargo to the station under a $1.6 billion NASA contract, has former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on its lobbying team, Senate filings show. Blue Origin hired two ex-lawmakers, including the former House Science Committee chairman, in May to lobby. In Congress, dozens of lawmakers with opposing views on the issue sent letters to NASA.

Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com, is the bigger of the billionaires. He is No. 17 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world's wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of $29.4 billion. Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and co-founder of PayPal, is No. 135, with an estimated net worth of $8.8 billion.

The competition began in May after NASA began seeking proposals to operate the launch pad. The agency plans to spend about $8.7 billion on transportation to the station in the next five years, according to budget documents.

SpaceX and Blue Origin applied for the launch site lease.

“There are a limited number of East Coast established launch sites,” Chris Quilty, an analyst with Raymond James and Associates in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in a phone interview. “Given the fact that both companies intend to ramp up their launch volume, they need to secure enough launch pads to handle that volume.”

Closely held SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, has spent $540,000 in the first six months of 2013 to lobby, compared with $500,000 during the same period in 2012, Senate filings show.

Blue Origin, based in Kent, Wash., and also closely held, hired the lobbying firm K& L Gates LLP the same month NASA sought proposals. The company spent $20,000 to lobby Congress in June – its first such expenditures, according to Senate filings.

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